Robinson: SF 'moving backwards' in justice talks
The North’s First Minister Peter Robinson accused Sinn Féin today of moving backwards in crunch talks to resolve the policing and justice dispute.
Progress has been made on key issues around the financing and running of the justice ministry but the future of loyal order parading is still to be resolved, Robinson added.
With Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams warning that negotiations were at an end, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader called for calm heads.
“It seems every time I think there is a good day (in the talks), I awaken to find someone is moving away and moving backwards,” he said.
“People recognise that the community in Northern Ireland doesn’t want to go back to the old days, they want a steady hand on the helm and want to see progress being made.”
Sinn Féin wants to secure a date for the transfer of policing and justice powers from London to Belfast while the DUP has also been pressing for changes to how controversial loyal order parades are governed.
Currently the Parades Commission, appointed from London, adjudicates on processions like Drumcree in Portadown, Co Armagh, where Orangemen have been barred from walking along the nationalist Garvaghy Road.
Mr Robinson added that both sides had recognised there was a need for engagement on parades.
“I thought we were moving in the right direction and were starting to see the areas of concern to the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and to Sinn Féin in relation to the structures recommended by the Ashdown Review, we were looking at other ways,” he said.
In the summer of 2008 Paddy Ashdown’s Strategic Review of Parading came back with what it described as interim proposals placing local dialogue at the heart of the process.
It said that, where possible, the dispute would be solved in the first instance by dialogue between those organising the parade and those objecting – local councils would facilitate such talks, if necessary.
If such dialogue failed, the highest office in the Northern Ireland Executive, the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) would appoint a mediator, drawn from a list selected by public appointment.
Nationalists have warned against re-politicising adjudication on parades.
As speculation mounts that the British and Irish Governments will have to step in to save the negotiations, republicans escalated the war of words with the DUP.
Mr Adams said the talks effectively ended on Wednesday night, despite DUP claims otherwise, and he accused the Democratic Unionists of “playing the orange card” by demanding concessions on loyal order parades.
His party’s executive, the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle, will meet tomorrow in Dublin to decide on the next course of action.
There are fears now that republicans will crank up political pressure and may go as far as pulling out of the power-sharing government.
Mr Adams today repeated that there was no deal with the DUP on the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Assembly, where unionist calls for agreement on replacing the Parades Commission are believed to be a major stumbling block.
He said the partition of Ireland “gave unionists a little orange state”, and claimed organisations such as the Orange Order had since played a key political role.
“Even today most unionist politicians are in one or other of the loyal orders and those that aren’t listen attentively to what the Orange wants,” he wrote in his blog, Leargas.
“And what is that in 2010? They want the scrapping of the Parades Commission and progress on the ground – in other words marches through Catholic areas.
“It’s sad that, even now, sectarianism and triumphalism still has such a huge grip on a large section of the unionist psyche.
“The orange card, played so often in the past to get their own way, is being played again as the DUP try to get the Orange Order what the Orange Order wants.”
He added: “Sorry folks – it doesn’t work like that any more. Those days are gone. The orange state is gone.”
Ulster Unionist leader Reg Empey said: “How can they place their personal security in the hands of an institution that can’t agree on how to move children from primary to secondary school?
“This is not some small issue – this is transferring a significant power to an Executive that isn’t functioning properly.”
Alliance leader David Ford said they had to secure a deal for the benefit of all.
“A swift deal is essential and any deal must allow the whole Executive to start delivering quickly and effectively on the other issues they have put into cold storage,” he said.
